To want to do the things I've always wanted to do now I'm retired and not give DC house deposit money

[Mumcouchtotri]

I've worked for over 35 years. I've recently retired and finally I have a reasonable income (34kk - I still have to pay income tax on that and have a few btl that give no income now but should do in 3-5 years when mortgages are paid off) considering I have no mortgage or debt outstanding. I have two DC (23 and 26) who both live in the south east. Iknow theybwould like s house, but I've said I won't be able to help them st all. I think all help ends at 18, now I want to enjoy my life - go on cruises , have a new CSR etc. Just simple stuff like that that I've never done.

It does seem most of their friends are getting help from parents. But surely not all? Your responsibility with a child ends financially once they are an adult working full time?

The pil had a marvellous retirement until they succumbed to dementia. Five holidays a year at one point. Mil shopping in Jaeger and fil in Gieves & Hawkes. They would not pay dh's maintenance at university, they gave presents such as out-of-date boxes of Ferrero Rocher and Christmas contributions like the infamous box of crackers with two extracted. They were mean .

Sorry, tatt, but too right the dcs chose their nursing home. And too right it wasn't the one with gold-plated taps.

I really hope I read your post incorrectly or missed something. This is just awful. I really feel sorry for your PIL. You sound like you really resented your PIL and the whole presents and maintenance comment sounds really grabby and entitled. Basically what you are saying is you were all waiting for them to die or in this case "succumb" to dementia then you quickly shoved them into a shitty nursing home even though they could afford better. All so you could get your hands on their money. This is the very reason people that can afford it should have some form of living will with non family memeber executors (solicitor etc.) just in case circumstances change and they are unable to make decisions. They can protect themselves against grabby family members that will shove them in a shitty nursing home and run for the hills with their money.

As I have stated above I would / will support DD if I can however if I ever got an inclination that she or her partner was this resentful and expectant I would leave everything I own in trust to my GC (if we had any) only to be released when they were old enough to manage their own finances or to a charity. She would not get a penny.

But this is what happens when successive governments give tax breaks and welfare boosts to the retired, and fund that by cutting expenditure on those much younger.

The elderly vote according to self interest. Why shouldn't everyone else? I'm far from advocating that people administer their parent's assets in a selfish way. That would be wrong. But the whole system of taxation and benefits is wrongly structured to favour the old at the expense of the young. The only reason for that is that they are more likely to vote.

Tatt, what you describe as being a commonplace childhood for my parents' generation, is not something they, as working class people, would recognise. The impoverished existence you describe would be more akin to what my grandparents experienced! The guiding principle of my parents' generation (boomers) was contempt for the old- you only have to listen to music of that time to know that. The cult of youth was created by them not us but the self indulges they took as a right- free education, affordable housing, job security are not a legacy we're able to inherit. Instead, we're expected to bear the brunt of all cuts from benefits and public services that younger generations would benefit from, whilst the retired have recession proof pensions, free bus passes, winter fuel allowance, home ownership! When you say 'spoilt', what generation are you referring to as on paper it looks more to me like the one that never learnt to value the legacy they had!

Oh dear we are at odds with each other over this. My daughter by the way saved £40k when a trainee solicitor in London including savings from a young age and she bought with her husband. Today and in my day 30 years ago you often have to buy with a partner in London. It was ever thus.

The 70s was awful. Massive recession, property crash. I am from the NE. All those many many miners and dock workers out of work - an industrial wasteland, proper poverty we don't know today.

As for whether those children who choose high paid careers and work hard can never buy in zone 5 in London today I just don't agree. It was tough in my day and it's tough now. of course you might have to slum it in Watford but that won't kill you unless you're an entitled little so and so who needs a kick up the bottom.

here is one £150k

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-39348147.html
If both in a couple (or two siblings) save for 5 yearsandget at 90% mortgage they could buy it. My son is a post man. He can apparently borrow £110k.

Agree Collaborate

Pension age should have been raised gradually over the past 40+ years in line with rising life expectancy.

Profits on sale of property should have been taxed, rather than becoming virtually the only way to make money tax free.

Successive governments have chickened out of both these unpopular but IMO necessary changes.

However: the reason this hasn't happened is not just because the older generation are voters.

It's also because if pension ages were raised, there would be a lot more unemployed folk - thr number of jobs has not increased in line with longer life expectancy. A rise in unemployment looks bad for the govt. Similarly if house profits were taxed, house prices would drop, which also looks bad for the govt.

I agree successive governments have failed to come up with a workable solution that works for everyone and frankly I don't think that solution will happen soon. The elderly do vote according to self interest but I think everyone votes to self interest.

I guess I am just shocked because I would never be able to sacrifice my mother or PIL for their money because government policy doesn't work for me. It's just really sad IMHO

From a purely selfish point of view, there's no way I could enjoy a happy relaxed retirement if my DCs were struggling with the uncertainty of living in some grotty rental.

DH and I were the first in our families to go to Uni, we got full grants. We bought our first property at the right time. We inherited a big chunk from his uncle. We made a lot of money in the Blair years, we've ridden out the recession and make a lot of money now.

We have had a massive amount of good fortune financially. We will be downsizing and passing on as much as we can, to our kids. We don't want them to have to wait until we are dead either.

Deo your link is for a 1 bed flat, in zone 5, not cheapest to commute in from and not exactly a family home! The equivalent of £150k a generation ago would have bought you a family home. There is a huge difference- it is the boomers who seem more entitled and spoilt to me, not young people today who are working their butts off and up to the eyeballs in debt!!

Those photos are indeed very sad, but I suppose what people on here are trying to say is that they want a similar experience for their dcs as they themselves had, which may well have been the middle-class 4-bedroom house in suburbia on a modest income model.

Which misses the point in a most spectacular manner, as do all of the others that persist in using MC, home ownership as the norm.

But the whole system of taxation and benefits is wrongly structured to favour the old at the expense of the young. is shocking. Utterly shocking. I suppose the right way of doing things is to go back to putting 'the elderly' into workhouses so they don't cost the young any of their hard earned cash.

The real solution isn't universal home ownership, or a complete removal of social compassion, but a stronger government that will actually do something rather than pratt around on the edges of issues.

Oh, and prison sentences for those who persist in demonising, othering, whole sections of their community based on highly inaccurate and emotive meeja crap. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Love how one boomer goes "well i'm not rich" as if to dispell that boomers are not wealthy as a generation.

They are the richest generation we have ever had, and at least for the next few will be the richest. I wouldn't mind them flaunting their wealth and being extravagent with it however this wealth is from a ponzi system that other people are paying the price for, so I can't congratulate them on it. Sadly some boomers do self congratulate themselves on buying a house for buttons that is now worth lottery jackpot prices or having a pensions that anyone graduating could only dream of and think it was due to hard work rather than just being at the right place in the right time.

You start somewhere small and grotty though, don't you? Or at least we had to. We haven't all had the good fortune of Tinkly.

By the way we sold our family home at a loss in zone 5 in 1997. Property has not always been a one way bet.

Conversely, I love how one boomer is reported as saying "well I'm super rich" and that proves that absolutely all boomers are hugely wealthy as a generation.

How such stereotypes come to be applied universally beggars belief. So many others here are, or have parents who are, 'boomers' who don't have all the trappings of wealth many here insist they must have.

Life really doesn't work like that. You are being brainwashed into hating a generation for no other reason than it diverts your attention from the underlying issues - issues we could all do something about if we weren't spending so much time, energy and emotion defending one or the other side of such a pointless argument!

Movingon I am 39 so not a "boomer" myself. I really don't understand and I want to because I feel I am missing something. In what way are the "boomers" entitled and spoilt?

You are rolling in money, and being this miserly? Is this post for real, OP? If you don't help your DCs out, the way things are at the moment, they're likely to work till their 70s and still not be able to afford their own home. Or are they in high-flying jobs?

Why not enjoy yourself with your large annual income, and sell one of your buy to lets (which you've just got "a few of" to help them out with deposits?

Deo - you may have sold at a loss in 1997, but you probably bought again cheap, so not a loss in any real sense.

Conversely, I love how one boomer is reported as saying "well I'm super rich" and that proves that absolutely all boomers are hugely wealthy as a generation.

No the stats and figures do. Not one persons experince.

That depends entirely on how you pick the stats. If you divorce them form any social context then yes, you are correct in assuming that all boomers are filthy rich.

This has been done so very many times before. It is sad that some are so entrenched in their determination to demonise and entire generation simply because times change and the meeja does what the meeja does.

I am happy to be the child of decidedly not rich, home owning boomers, married to a man whose boomer parents were also most definitely not rich or home owning. Happy because I don't ever feel inclined to hate them for having something I do not.

The problem is not boomers.

The problem is vote chasing and short termism politics.

No government for decades has been willing to spell out the issue that public service pensions were unsustainable and merely kicked the problem down the road til the next government.

Its not the reds / blues / yellows fault. Its ALL political colours who have been appalling in actually dealing with bad news and unpalatable decisions. Its not restricted to pensions either. Take a look at PFI, airport runways and the building of new power plants for good examples.

The issue is that, at some point things will come to a head. Voters in a particular demographic will become the minority rather than majority in holding the balance of power.

That means at some point in the future, people sitting on huge pensions will have a shock. Not only will their lifestyles be affected, but also their assets. They will either end up giving it to the state or will have to find a way to pass it to their children in their lifetime. It won't be 'theirs' to keep.

So 'enjoying it now', might not work out well in the future for a generation. The best insurance may well be to ensure that your kids are set up well and therefore better able to financially support you in the future. An extra £5k in a mortgage at the start of a 25 year loan is not £5000. Its worth a lot more than that. Its worth more than you can get on interest in your own bank account.

Getting that understanding with your kids and treating them as an investment in your own future rather than a drain on your own finances and lifestyle might not be the worst idea.

I have been helping out my mother financially since I was in my twenties. I cashed in my first 3 years of pension payments to pay off her debts. I have paid deposits, train fares, I pay for her phone. My father died when I was 18. I have not had a parental safety net really since then.

I have benefited from DHs parents - they have contributed towards our deposits - we would have struggled to buy without it. But I do wonder if buying a house is actually that important - it is to dh so I am happy to go along with it. But it is not the only way of living. My parents never owned a house. We always rented and we moved a few times and always had decent accommodation.

The issue today is that the way that renting property is so badly regulated/ not protected by the state and seen as a failure rather than a practical way of finding somewhere to live. There is a lack of decent council housing and an influx of BtL landlords in the private sector with no experience, little understanding of their responsibilities mainly in it for the retirement income. Tenants feel like second class citizens cos they aren't homeowners and some don't respect their responsibilities either.

So do what you want to OP - but I really think we are on this planet for such a short time, financial security is such a fragile thing based on concepts like stock prices, banks kept open with our taxes and house values - not real. I would much prefer to invest my time and money in flesh and blood - my time with family and friends precious and fleeting - but real and more valuable when you look back at your life and look at the good you have done and the people you love. Maybe I am feeling philosophical as I have been to a couple of funerals in the past few weeks.

I left home at 16 and never received any help from my parents, financial or otherwise. However, as the parents of a 24 yr old daughter my husband and I will always do whatever we can to help her, because we love her. She has never asked us for anything, but I'm sure she knows that we will always be there for her and help her if and when we possibly can.
You obviously feel very differently and that's your privilege. However your statement "All help ends at 18" is shocking to me in it's coldness and detachment. You appear to be referring to the expiration of a legal contract, rather than the strong sense of emotional attachment (aka 'love) that most parents, thankfully, feel for their children, regardless of how old they are.

The responses here are eg. Its completely your choice but...........

I say its completely your choice OP start enjoying your well earned retirement.

Ds has a number of friends from Indian families, and their absolute priority is to buy their dcs a home. Such a different attitude from OP's.

As I said (and have been flamed for, strangely) it's not just about the money, but that is an indicator. My parents would have done anything for me - they didn't have a great deal of money, but they gave time and interest and indeed some financial help. But dh's parents - in spite of being very comfortable - never, ever showed any generosity. And that included of spirit.

As others have said, I couldn't see myself on endless cruises if I thought my dcs were in need. And that's not "needing" a penthouse in zone 1, that's "hoping" to find something affordable anywhere .

Er Deo we did start out small and grotty, and slept on the floor for six months while we saved up for a bed. And we sold that flat for a 7k loss.

But yes, I would still consider us financially fortunate to be born at the time we were. We have worked hard, but so do lots of young people do nowadays, with nothing to show for it.

I imagine you have had just as much good fortune as us Deo.

Gosh can't imagine ever saying parenting ends with any age let alone 18!

We will do everything we can to help our kids including free child care as long as we are able.

Me and dh brought our first 4 bedroom house for £34.000 in 1988 aged 24. Deposit of £400 pound paid on a credit card. So lucky and made money on each house.

I feel sorry for the 20 something's today.

the problem with renting is that the cost of the rent is higher than the cost of a morgage (At least where we are).
And then at the end of it, you have nothing to show for it.
It just doesnt make sense on a financial pov.

And also YY rto the fact that renting is a very insecure way to having somewhere to live. YOu just have to read threads on here re LL/tenants etc...

As far as I am concerned we will help the dcs if we can to get a house (or whatever else it might they need with). I don't see my role as a parent to end when they are 18yo. They will always be my children and I will always try to help them as much as I can.